I could no longer plead extenuating circumstances: I could not demean myself by trying to explain--" "And ?" "And now I have the satisfaction, Armand, of knowing that the biggest fool in England has the most complete contempt for his wife." She spoke with vehement bitterness this time, and Armand St.Just, who loved her so dearly, felt that he had placed a somewhat clumsy finger upon an aching wound.
"But Sir Percy loved you, Margot," he repeated gently.
"Loved me ?--Well, Armand, I thought at one time that he did, or I should not have married him.

I daresay," she added, speaking very rapidly, as if she were about to lay down a heavy burden, which had oppressed her for months, "I daresay that even you thought--as everybody else did--that I married Sir Percy because of his wealth--but I assure you, dear, that it was not so.

He seemed to worship me with a curious intensity of concentrated passion, which went straight to my heart.

I had never loved any one before, as you know, and I was four-and-twenty then--so I naturally thought that it was not in my nature to love.

But it has always seemed to me that it MUST be HEAVENLY to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly.